Career Advice - Would you pay ?

[Iggywonder]

Hi Guys,

I was thinking (I know).... Would anyone pay for career advice ? The resources in this country are pretty bad. At most you'll get recruiters trying to push you in a direction you know nothing about. I'm thinking (dependent at applicants level) a 1on1 chat for an hour looking at possible options then a pack to take away. All for £35. I think this is quite cheap ? Your thoughts would be useful.

 

[TotallySport]

no, I wouldn't pay for it, and £35 is alot of money

but I agree there are no quality career advice thats current and upto date, there used to be a book called go for it which was excellent but haven't looked or see it for a long time, but turning that into a web site and looking for affliate and advertising would be a good idea, I am sure there other ways to generate revenue as well, like downloadable packs.

Good Luck

 

[akirk]

I think that for the right person that is v. low and they will pay for it - but that person tends to be someone already in a career and looking for career shaping rather than starting out and wanting more generic advice...

get the business model right and there could be a very big gap in the market - think university students and sponsorship from a bank etc. (tie in with graduate account / etc.)

Alasdair

 

[TotallySport]

I think that for the right person that is v. low and they will pay for it - but that person tends to be someone already in a career and looking for career shaping rather than starting out and wanting more generic advice...

get the business model right and there could be a very big gap in the market - think university students and sponsorship from a bank etc. (tie in with graduate account / etc.)

Alasdair

Do you really think students need careers advice and have £35 to pay for it?

Personally I think your going to have to do market research with clip board and paper and ask people.

I think careers advice is for mainly people who are 13-17 years old, older people will generally know people to ask and get advice from other sources.

 

[akirk]

I was suggesting a sponsorship based approach - which could bring the cost down considerably - e.g. £19.99 & vouchers to xx etc. - the kind of approach liked by students...

I think that students are hugely in need of career advice as are many other sectors - plenty of people not knowing what they want to do with their lives...

13 - 17 year olds will often get careers advice at school...

it is a matter of being creative - there are plenty of opportunities if structured correctly

Alasdair

 

[TotallySport]

I was suggesting a sponsorship based approach - which could bring the cost down considerably - e.g. £19.99 & vouchers to xx etc. - the kind of approach liked by students...

I think that students are hugely in need of career advice as are many other sectors - plenty of people not knowing what they want to do with their lives...

13 - 17 year olds will often get careers advice at school...

it is a matter of being creative - there are plenty of opportunities if structured correctly

Alasdair

Good point but I would be suprised is Uni's don't offer acreers advice direct or can put their students intouch with the necessary people for free as well.

I was thinking more 13-17 as IMO they are the most likely to need the advice, and at a bigger level, where as Uni's students I would imaginge would need more advanced and specific advice.

 

[akirk]

I think that you are right, but at school the pupils tend to have a more structured life where careers is a part of it so they do it...
whereas at University, while there may be a career library, there is less structure and therefore it is probably not programmed in...

Alasdair

 

[ethical PR]

A lot of universities have a dedicated careers service offering 1:1 advice, lots of online and printed resources and an employment service.

 

[BizGurl]

I'm changing career direction at the moment actually, and to be honest, no I wouldn't generally pay for careers advice.

Most important information regarding careers can be found through independant study, be it online, libraries or people already working within one's chosen career path. I've found free careers services like Connexions, Uni, Jobcentre Plus, etc, to be generally cr@p, and largely a waste of time. They'll usually send you away with a load of leaflets and so on.

I would possibly pay however, if for example, it was a careers service which could perhaps set me up with 'work experience'/trials etc in a new career path. This would obviously require contacts/etc on the side of the advisor. In fact, setting up things like that would be useful to a lot of people and could in fact be worth a lot more than say £35.

 

[Astaroth]

About 3 years ago met with a company that gives you career, interview and "the unadvertised job market" (aka networking) advice.Theirs from memory involved a couple of evening workshops plus circa 4 hours with one of their specialists and they were looking to charge £8,000 + VAT for it. (Didnt do it before anyone asks).People are willing to pay for "career advice" but you really need to define what you actually mean a little better. Are you talking about saying how to get into a line of work, what the right line of work for a person is, interview techniques or........

 

[Iggywonder]

This is all brought about as in my current line of work I have been speaking to a lot of graduates that do not have a clue what options are available to them. It seem s that if there isn’t a TV programme glamorizing a particular line of work then they are pretty much left to their own devices. More recently there are a vast amount of experienced candidates that have been made redundant and have not entered the market place for a while. I know that many of them are being well supported by their previous employers but I’m sure there is a market for professional advice for these candidates. There is an argument that they should do the research off their own back but getting aces to a different industry can be quite challenging. As stated earlier there are companies that are currently doing this but I’m sure there’s room for one more ?

 

[Twizzlebird Creative]

I think graduates would pay for it at that price, but you would need to differentiate yourself from the free stuff available through the universities. Where I studied (UWE, Bristol) they offered careers advice for up to 3 years after you graduated. When I tried to use this service I was really disappointed, as the advisors just read information out from the Prospects website! I think the Prospects website is pretty bad. It has lots of information if you want a very standard job, but not much 'outside of the box' I think their approach is far too simplistic. I think there are tons of educated people out there that would appreciate someone who can help them find direction, that's a bit broader and more intelligent than basic job types. If you can offer that I think there's a huge gap in the market for it.

 

[Alison Allen]

I think people would pay for careers advice as loing as you offered something a bit unique, and perhaps combined it with some sort of validated personality questionnaire to help determine the kind of jobs/the type of work that your customers might be suited to. University careers services can be limited so you would need to offer more that they do to make it worthwhile.